He could not move at all.
His hands, his stupid five-fingered, Earth-human, and utterly alien hands, trembled uncontrollably while his multiple mind tried desperately to decide what to do with them.
He knew that this kind of thing could happen to medics who were carrying too many tapes, but that it should not happen too often if the Doctor concerned hoped to make it as a Diagnostician. Frantically, he tried to impose order on the warring factions within his mind by calling up the memory of O’Mara, who was totally unsympathetic where disorderly thinkers were concerned-in particular, the memory of the Chief Psychologist telling him what the Educator tapes were and, more importantly, what they were not.
No matter how he felt subjectively, his mind was not being taken over by the alien personalities who were apparently sharing it-his Earth-human mind had simply been given a large quantity of extraterrestrial knowledge on which it could draw. But it was very difficult to convince himself of that when the other-species material in his mind belonged to medical people with their own individual ideas on how he should react to this emergency.
The ideas were very good, particularly those of the Melfan and Tralthan components. But they required the use of ELNT pincers or FGLI primary manipulators, not Earth-human fingers, and he was being urged to do too many things at once with the wrong organic equipment.
Hossantir’s Melfan assistant whose ID, like everything else in the immediate area, was obscured by the bloody spray, said urgently, “I can’t see. My visor is—”
One of the nurses quickly cleaned the helmet in front of the eyes, not wasting time on the rest of the transparent bubble. But the fine red spray was re-covering it as Conway watched. And that was not the only problem, because, deep inside the operative field, the light sources on the instruments were likewise obscured.
The Tralthan Senior had been closest so that only the front of its bubble helmet had been affected. One of its eyes curled back to regard Conway through the still transparent rear section.
“We require assistance, Conway. Can you suggest a …” Hossantir began; then it noticed the trembling hands and added, “Are you indisposed?”
Conway clenched his fists slowly — everything seemed to be happening in the slowest of slow motion-and said, “It is temporary.”
Silently he added, I hope.
But the alien personalities who were not really there were still clamoring for attention. He tried to ignore all but one of them at a time, thinking vaguely of the principle of divide and rule, but that did not work either. All of them were offering medical or surgical advice, all of it had potential value in the present situation, and all of it called for an immediate response. The only available material which did not force itself forward was the Gogleskan data accidentally provided by Khone, and that was of little value anyway. But for some reason his mind kept returning to it, holding on to that frightened but strong-willed alien personality as if it were some kind of psychological life-raft.
Khone’s presence was not at all like the sharp, intense, and artificially enhanced impressions produced by the Educator tapes. He found himself concentrating on the little being’s mental imprint, even though the strange and visually terrifying creatures around the operating frame threatened to throw it into a panic reaction. But the Gogleskan data also included material on Conway’s work at the hospital, transferred to its mind during the mishap on Goglesk, and this to a certain extent had prepared Khone for just this kind of experience. It was also a member of a race of individualists whose mental processes were adept at avoiding contact with, or of negating the influence of, other beings around them.
More than any other entity in Conway’s experience, Khone knew how to ignore people.
All at once his hands were no longer shaking and the alien babel within his mind had quieted to an insistent murmur which he could choose to ignore. He tapped the Melfan assisting Hossantir sharply on its carapace.
“Please withdraw and leave your instruments in position,” he said. To the Tralthan Senior he added, “The bleeding is obscuring everything in the operative field, including the magnifiers and light sources of the instruments and, if we approach closely, our visors. We must …
“Suction isn’t working, Conway,” Hossantir broke in, “and won’t until the flow has been checked at source. But we can’t see the source!”
… Use the scanners,” Conway continued quietly, enclosing the tiny, hollow-coned handles of the Melfan clamp with his Earthhuman fingers, “in conjunction with my hands and your eyes.
Since normal vision was useless because of his helmet’s close proximity to the spray from the wound, Conway’s idea was that Hossantir use two scanners angled so as to bear on the operative field from two viewpoints as far apart as possible. This would give an accurate stereoscopic picture of what was happening which the Senior could describe for him and guide the movements of his clamp. He would be operating blind, but only long enough to find and seal off the bleeder, after which the operation would proceed in the normal way. It would be a very uncomfortable few minutes for Hossantir, two of whose four eyes would be extended laterally to the limits of its flattened, ovoid helmet. It would also have to withdraw temporarily from the operation, Conway told it apologetically, so that its scanners and helmet would not be affected by the spray.
“This could give me a permanent squint,” Hossantir said, “but no matter.”
None of his alter egos saw anything funny in the idea of a great, elephantine Tralthan with a squint in two of its widely extensible eyes. Fortunately, a smothered Earth-human laugh was not translatable.
His hands and the instruments felt heavy and awkward, and not just because he was using Melfan clamps. The gravity nullification field surrounding him did not, of necessity, extend to the patient, so that everything at the operating site weighed four times heavier than normal. But the Tralthan used its scanners to guide him verbally to the blood vessel which had to be origin of the massive hemorrhaging, and considering the elevated blood pressure of the Hudlar life-form, he expected to feel resistance as he clamped it off.
There was none, and the bleeding continued with undiminished force.
One of his alter egos had encountered something like this situation during a transplant on an entirely different life-form, a diminutive Nidian whose blood pressure had been only a fraction of that of this Hudlar. On that occasion the blood flow had also been a fine spray rather than the pulsing stream characteristic of arterial bleeding, and the trouble had been due to a mechanical failure rather than to faulty surgical technique.
Conway was not sure if that was the problem here, but a part of his multiple mind felt sure, and he decided to trust that part.
“Stop the artificial heart,” he said firmly. “Cut off the blood supply to the area.
“We can easily make good the blood loss,” Hossantir objected, “but cutting off circulation for more than a few minutes could kill the patient.”
“Do it now,” Conway said.
Within a few seconds the bright red spray had subsided and died. A nurse cleaned Conway’s visor while Hossantir used suction to clear the operative field. They did not need the scanners to see what had happened.
“Technician, quickly,” Conway said.
Before he had finished speaking there was a furry little Nidian, looking like a gift-wrapped teddy bear in its transparent OR suit, hovering beside his elbow.
“The nonreturn valve of the connector is jammed in the closed position,” the Nidian said in its staccato, barking speech. “This was caused, I would say, by the valve setting being altered accidentally when it was struck by one of the surgical instruments. The flow from the artificial heart has been blocked and was forcing its way out via the recess of the valve setting control, hence the fine, highpressure spray. The valve itself isn’t damaged, and if you will raise the organ so that I will have space to reset the valve …”